National Parks
Portfolio
The parks, in the words of their friends.
The legendary 1916 publication returns — one chapter for each of the 63 National Parks, written by the nonprofit friends group that knows it best. Coming 2027.
A Book That Built the Parks
In June 1916, two months before Congress created the National Park Service, the Department of the Interior published the first edition of the National Parks Portfolio. Written by journalist Robert Sterling Yard and championed by Stephen T. Mather, who would become the Service's first director, it introduced Americans to their national parks through richly illustrated, park-by-park profiles.
Its first edition of 275,000 copies reached every member of Congress and the nation's business, civic, and educational leaders — and helped build the public will that created the National Park Service itself that August.
The Portfolio ran through six editions, the last published in 1931. For nearly a century, the series has been dormant. Volume VII takes up the tradition where it left off.
Sixty-Three Parks. Sixty-Three Voices.
Where Robert Sterling Yard wrote alone, Volume VII is written by the people who know each park most intimately: the nonprofit conservancies, trusts, foundations, and friends groups that sustain them.
Each of the 63 congressionally designated National Parks receives one chapter, authored by its primary philanthropic partner — its landscape, its story, what makes it singular, and the citizen work that protects it. Together the chapters form a portrait of the National Park System at this moment in its history, told in sixty-three distinct voices.
Volume VII will be a large-format, photograph-rich hardcover in the visual tradition of the original, with a companion digital edition. After recovery of documented production costs, net proceeds will be divided 50/50 between the contributing friends groups and the publisher.
For Friends Groups
What we ask
- One original article of 800–1,200 words about your park and your organization's work
- Three to five high-resolution photographs your organization can license, with credits
- A one-paragraph note telling readers how to support you, closing your chapter
What you receive
- Full byline and organizational credit — your logo, website, and donation information
- You keep full copyright and unrestricted reprint rights to your own chapter
- Complimentary copies, and an equal share of the contributors' half of net proceeds
Volume VII succeeds only if every park's story is told by the organization that has earned the right to tell it. If you lead or serve a National Park friends group, we would welcome a conversation.
Be There When It Returns
Leave your email and we'll write when contributor announcements, preview chapters, and the publication date are ready. Nothing else, no noise.
We send only Portfolio news. Unsubscribe anytime.